#tourneys

We present our look at the Year of the False Spring — the Tourney of Harrenhal, the Mad King, the Knight of the Laughing Tree, the moment when all the smiles died and MORE! Join us for an extensive and far reaching analysis of the year the wheels fell off the Targaryen dynasty, a year that provides the narrative foundation for ASOIAF.  Listen Download

Well, Uthor Underleaf and Glendon Ball are both aristocrats, just from one of the very lowest rungs of the nobility.

Not thinking about the Whent theory and 👀 if that's true Aemond's "son" did become king because both Bran and Sansa might have been his descendants. Because honestly thooo, there must really be a good reason why GRRM gave LF Harrenhal and why he claimed Sansa his bastard which technically makes her the unofficial heir. There must be a connection.

I don't think the Stark children are decendant from Aemond and Alys's son. After House Strong, Harrenhal passed to House Lothston and almost a century later to House Whent.

I think the connection with Sansa and Harrenhal is about a tourney, an important tourney:

Tourney at Ashford Meadow, celebrated in honor of Lord Ashford's daughter's 13th nameday, little Lady Ashford was the queen of love and beauty. The last five champions after the first day of the tourney were a Baratheon, a Lannister, a Tyrell, a Hardyng and a brown haired Targaryen Prince, which are the same last names of Sansa's suitors.

Tourney at Harrenhal, celebrated in honor of another Lord Whent's maiden daughter's name day. The champion was Prince Rhaegar Targaryen who crowned Lyanna Stark as the queen of love and beauty.

And now Sansa Stark, disguised as Alayne Stone, the maiden daughter of the Lord of Harrenhal is organizing a tourney at the Gates of the Moon, to select the first members of little Lord Robert Arrryn's personal guard, they will be called the Brotherhood of Winged Knights.

Other than them being ritualized forms of combat, they’re very different.

In Westeros, the knights fight in armor. The goal is to test their skill against others, not to kill. While deaths do happen, that’s not the aim and the killer has a tarnished reputation for the rest of their life (Otho Bracken, Maekar Targaryen). Meanwhile, in Meereen the aim is to watch people and animals kill each other, to the point they’re uninterested in Westerosi style tourneys: “Ser Barristan suggested a tourney instead; his orphans could ride at rings and fight a mêlée with blunted weapons, he said, a suggestion Dany knew was as hopeless as it was well-intentioned. It was blood the Meereenese yearned to see, not skill. Elsewise the fighting slaves would have worn armor.” —Dany II ADWD

In Westeros, while usually technically anyone can fight in a tourney (though tourneys like Ashford was restricted to those with knighthood), they’re really elite games. They’re supposed to own their equipment, which includes at least one horse and some kind of armor. Kings, princes, and Great Lords/heirs fight in tourneys, because it’s for the higher classes to hone their martial skills during peacetime. In Meereen, the fighters of the pits are all slaves (they don’t even own themselves) who are given room/board/weapons and sold by the nobles. Some were raised to be pit fighters, while others were captured and sold into slavery, indicating it’s a form of punishment sometimes. Even when slavery is partly outlawed, the pit fighters all seem to be freedmen who know no other trade, and certainly no noble is going to risk death for a fight. There are even people who didn’t agree to die they set animals on (like Penny and Tyrion who were just mock jousting), while tourneys are only for people who have of training. There are even “rounds” so the fighters don’t get too outmatched.

The whole thing is built into the code of chivalry. Though we see ladies handing a knight a handkerchief in media, it was often a glove that a lady offered a knight so he might do her some service if she was in some trouble. Knights were not meant to refuse a lady.

The offering of a favour does have a less business side version and favours were offered in tourneys, a way of a knight representing a lady's honour while he jousted. These favours were ribbons or swathes of cloth often tucked into breastplates or pinned to helms or tied about arms.